1. Field of Invention
This invention relates generally to computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM), multimedia, or any other system that supports substantially concurrent viewing and the ability to change electronically captured multidimensional graphics or text by multiple users and, more particularly, to a system for and method of sharing and executing inaccessible dynamic processes for replica consistency among multiple applications in a shared network.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Industries that manufacture motor vehicles, airplanes and other complex mechanical equipment require designers and engineers to work concurrently on the same large complex design. The ability to work concurrently on the same design allows multiple users to collaborate on design changes in real-time both reducing overall design time and improving the quality of the final designed product.
Computer systems allow designers and engineers to electronically capture and manipulate multidimensional design graphics. The computer software that electronically captures, displays and manipulates graphics displayed on a computer screen is referred to generally as an application program or application. For more than one user to view or work on the same electronically captured 3-D intensive graphics, text, or numbers at the same time, the application must be shared with each user workstation site. The shared application should provide concurrent and consistent views of the same design graphics in real-time at remote user workstations. This changing design trend from sequentially to concurrently processed design efforts can improve productivity. To address this evolution, systems and methods must be capable of simultaneously sharing and managing dynamic execution of multiple existing applications at remote workstations.
For graphical user interfaces (GUIs), most applications support two types of window processes as taught in Altenhofen et al., "The BERKOM Multimedia Collaboration Service," ACM Multimedia 93 (1993); Gutekunst et al., "A Distributed and Policy-Free General-Purpose Shared Window System," IEEE (1995), pages 51-61; and Nye, "XLib Programming Manual," O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. (1992). A first window process-type is an accessible or static window process, which is directly accessible by use of an input device such as a keyboard or pointing device, for example, virtual buttons or sliders. A second window process-type is an inaccessible or hidden window process, for example, pop-up or pull-down menu items, which are generally not directly accessible. An inaccessible process refers to any hidden process such as menu items that cannot dynamically receive events managed by other processes. To collaborate using existing applications, designers must have the capability to share both types of window processes.
The capability to control and execute inaccessible dynamic application processes at remote workstations by sharing replicated existing applications does not exist. The present invention provides a solution for this problem.